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Goodness me where oh where could that anti US bias come from? Couldn't be the illegal bombing of Cambodia and Laos during the Vietnam War, couldn't be arming th
by wesselbindt 1y ago
Goodness me where oh where could that anti US bias come from? Couldn't be the illegal bombing of Cambodia and Laos during the Vietnam War, couldn't be arming the Guatamalans who carried out the silent Holocaust, couldn't be arming the Turks while they were slaughtering Kurds, couldn't be the illegal invasion of Iraq, killing up to a million people, and torturing others without due process, ultimately leading to violent blowback from Islamic extremists in Europe in the form of terrorist attacks. Couldn't be providing billions of dollars in weapons for Israel to carry out its genocide, likely leading to even more blowback across the globe. No, surely it's because they're _ungrateful_.
- westmeal 1y agoAll of that was for freedoms though /s
- linotype 1y agoYeah I forgot that Europe wasn’t involved in Iraq or Afghanistan.
- wesselbindt 1y agoOh get off it. We all know who pushed for the invasions. We all know who operated the black sites.
- mensetmanusman 1y agoFrance forced the US into Vietnam , the real world is messy.
- wesselbindt 1y ago1. No they didn't, and that's not controversial. Even the most cursory Google search can dispell you of this notion. 2. "The world is messy" does not excuse countless war crimes. Imagine a lawyer in the Nuremberg trials saying "well sure the defendant sent children to the gas chamber, but your honor, have you considered that the world is a messy place?"
- linotype 1y agoPlease point me to the period of time that the US sent children to the gas chamber.
- wesselbindt 1y agoNo I won't because I never said they did. But there's plenty of war crimes to point to though. Surely you've seen the picture of the girl on fire because of napalm. You've seen the torture of innocent civilians in the Iraq war. You know about the use of cluster bombs in Iraq. You know they cut off the water to Fallujah. You know of the highway of death. You know they've made close to a million people homeless in Cambodia and Laos, countries that weren't even involved in the war. You know about the illegal invasion of Iraq. You know about the excess mortality of 500,000 children after the gulf war. You know about the mass killing of nearly a million people in Indonesia in the sixties perpetrated by troops trained in, armed by, and supplied with kill lists by America. You know of the troops that killed 160,000 Guatamalans, armed by America, and described by Reagan as great humanitarians. You've seen Gaza. These are all war crimes, and they are war crimes because they knowingly and actively target civilians. And honestly, at the end of the day it doesn't matter much to me whether you kill a kid by shoving them into a gas chamber or by shooting them, or by dropping bombs or napalm on preschools, because either way you've murdered a child.
- cmrdporcupine 1y agoAnd the European countries that did get their noses into Iraq (Poland, UK) were mostly doing so to curry favour with the Americans. And the ones who didn't were famously lambasted and attacked (huge anti-French sentiment, "freedom fries", all that garbage.)
- linotype 1y agoPeople don’t like the French because they’re jerks to tourists, not because of “freedom fries” nonsense.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- thomassmith65 1y agoAt least there's a figleaf. The 20th Century could have been the German Century, or the Soviet Century. For all America's sins, most people did well living in the American Century.
- wesselbindt 1y agoNot the Kurds though. Or the Mayans. Or the Chileans. Or Cuba. Iran got screwed pretty hard. And Iraq too for that matter. Afghanistan. East Timor, and Indonesia too. Oof and the Palestinians really got the short end of the stick. Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos. But yeah I concede your point, the small minority of people living in the Imperial core did pretty ok.
- thomassmith65 1y agoYes, they'd be much better off under Nazism. /s The actual people who live in those countries don't blame Americans for their troubles to the extent that Americans blame Americans.
- wesselbindt 1y agoI'm sure the folks who were tortured in Abu Ghraib were very happy that their toruturers bore no swastika. And I'm sure the Iraqi children who lost their entire families felt very blessed that the people who killed them were in fact the good guys. And the 130000 Mayans killed in the silent Holocaust? Well, imagine the added humiliation of knowing your killers were armed by Nazis. Phew, dodged that (metaphorical) bullet!
- thomassmith65 1y agoThis debate could continue forever since there's no single measure by which one can quantify how evil a nation is. I will leave our audience to consider the 20th Century and decide for themselves how America compared to Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany, Apartheid South Africa, the USSR, Maoist China, Spain under Franco, Imperial Japan... etc.